More Topics

Weather Forecast

Letter: This is what Schoen was elected to do?

By Benjamin Dallyfrom South St. Paul on Jun 20, 2014 at 9:00 a.m.

Democrat Will Labovitch wrote a recent letter (June 4 Bulletin) that was headlined: “Schoen did as he was elected to do.” It was responding to a piece written by House candidate Matthew Kowalski. In his original viewpoint, Kowalski exposed some of what Rep. Dan Schoen has done to further control the lives of the people in our district. This included his votes for unionization of childcare providers and enormous tax increases, and a bill he authored for job-crippling price controls on local businesses.

In Labovitch’s response, he claimed a vote for SF778 (the childcare unionization bill) was not a vote for forced unionization. He stated that it was a vote “to give day care providers the right to form a union should they choose to, not to force them into one.” This is disingenuous at best. In reality, many childcare business owners may be forced into unionizing. I’ll explain how.

Similar to an EBT card (formerly known as food stamps) to help with grocery expenses, low income families utilize the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) to subsidize their day care expenses, which allow parents to be employed. Should the unionization vote ever happen, childcare providers that participate in the CCAP program will decide whether or not to unionize.

Part of the problem is that the measure would pass with merely a majority of those votes that are cast. In other words, if a very small portion of the thousands of CCAP users vote, the entire group could be forced to unionize by the very few that support the idea.

While it’s true that these small-business owners may be able to opt for some “fair share” option, they would still have to pay dues, even if they opt out of being a union member. This will obviously drive up costs to hard-working parents and put further strain on our struggling economy.

The way this bill was crafted, it absolutely is forcing our childcare providers into something they do not want. And Schoen did, in fact, vote for it. This is what he was elected to do? Schoen is not the right person to represent our district.